If you are a Star Wars fan and have been anywhere near a computer, let alone twitter or other social media, you already know this has been a week of Rebels reveals. Between the New York Toy Fair toy reveals and the scattered Rebel character reveals (still ongoing), it sometimes seems like the Rebels are literally showing up from all directions.

For Star Wars RPG fans, the setup for the ship and crew in Rebels has some very familiar elements, and the recent reveals seem to strengthen them:

Small group

A beat up ship

Fighting and escaping from the Empire

A disparate group

A once hidden (semi)Jedi, trying to be effective and yet elude the Empire

An eager Force sensitive trying to figure things out

Armored weapons expert (bonus: Mandalorian)

Melee/muscle character who throws stormtroopers around

A lively droid

Another character is to be revealed soon, and will likely have a place in this list as well.

Anyway, this is the basic setup for many classic era RPG groups going back to 1987 and the West End Games days - right up to the Failed and/or Minor Jedi player character templates in the d6 game. This series should be a gold mine for GMs, especially those running upcoming Age of Rebellion games (not to mention adding to a fair number of Edge of the Empire games). Even better, new fans of the series will immediately understand the similar setup in the RPG, and may be more willing to try it out. Fortunately, there is an Age of RebellionBeginner Game coming to help them out.

I'm not going to try to post all the video clips here, just one of the short teaser trailers. The rest can be found on the starwars.com page.

Finally, Boardgamegeek.com announced the finalists for the Golden Geek awards. Unfortunately, Beyond the Rim was eliminated. As they say, it is an honor to be nominated. The competition in that category was also pretty stiff, including the Edge of the Empire Beginner Game, which is a finalist for RPG: Best Supplement. The Edge of the Empire Core Rulebook also remains in the running, as does X-wing. In fact, Edge (or the Beginner Game) is a finalist in every RPG category, except Best Podcast. In what could be a sign of things to come later in the year, Fate Core RPG, Numenera RPG, and Edge are competing against each other in multiple categories - great games, all. Voting is open until February 26, with the results announced on the 27th. Vote if you can (login and supporter-type membership required).